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AN ADDRESS 



BEFOEE THE 



ASSOCIATIOI OF THE ALUMM 



l^nihraitg of i\t Citg d Befo-f orli, 



JUNE 96, 1855. 



BY J. M. MATHEWS, D. D 



PUBLISHED AT THE REQUEST OF THE ASSOCIATION. 



N E W - Y O R K : 
PRINTED BY DANIEL FANSHAW, 

35 Ann -street, corner of Nassau. 



1856. 



m^^p^^^-^ 



nTi^y 



AN ADDRESS 



BEFORE THE 



ASSOCIATION OF THE ALUMH 



Infcrsitg of % Citg of Itfo-fork, 




JUNE 36, 1855. 



BY Ji M. MATHEWS, D. D. 



PUBLISHED AT THE EEQUEST OP THE ASSOCIATION. 



^-y OF CO/vg-;^^ 

./-^ TJ. S. > 

NEW-YORK: '^">wasv. 

PRINTED BY DANIEL FANSHAW, -^~:;;:::::-r:^ 

35 Ann-street, corner of Nassau. 

1856. 



1855-6. [jj) HaQ 



PRESIDENT. 

GEORGE H. MOORE 

Y2CE-PKESIDENT. 

HOWARD CROSBY. 

SECRETARY. 

WM. R. MARTIN. 



COMMITTEE. 

E. OGDEN DOEEMUS, 
THOMAS B. STIELING. 
WILLAED L. FELT, 
H. W. BEEES. 



New-York, 19th May, 1855. 
Rev. Dr. Mathews. 

Dear Sir :— We have the honor, on behalf of the Executive Committee 
of the Association of the Alumni of the University of the City 
OF New-York, to invite you to deliver the annual address before the 
Association, on Tuesday evening, 26th June, 1855. 

The Association was organized to advance the honor and promote the 
interests of the University, and the Committee are confident that no one 
can speak more to the purpose on the subject of University Education in 
New-York, than its first Chancellor. Identified with its origin and its early 
history, you can tell us what were the intentions of its founders and bene- 
factors. We have been ably instructed (in a former address by Dr. Draper) 
as to what the City of New- York owes to the University. May we ask you 
to give us some idea of what the University owes to the City and State ? 
Very respectfully, 

Geo. H- Moore, 

President. 



New-York, 22d May, 1855. 
G. H. Moore, Esq., President, etc. 

Dear Sir : — I have received your polite note on behalf of the Associa- 
tion of the Alumni of the University of the City of New- York, requesting 
me to deliver the annual address before the Association, on Tuesday evening, 
the 26th proximo. 

I must always feel not only a deep but an affectionate interest in the 
Alumni of an Institution which shared largely in my cares and labors for 
many years, and I will have much pleasure in complying with the request 
you have made to me. 

Please accept my thanks for the friendly terms in which you have made 
your communication, and believe me 

Yours veryrespectfuUy, 

J. M. Mathews. 



New-York University, ? 

New-York, July 11th, 1855. ] 

Rev. and Dear Sir :— 

At the annual meeting of the Associated Alumni of the University of the 
City of New-York, held June 27th ult. in the Chapel of the University, on 
motion of T. B. Stirling, the following resolution was passed unanimously: 



" Resolved, That the thanks of this Association be tendered to the Eey. 

James M. Mathews, D. D., for his very able and instructive address, and 

that a copy be requested for publication." 

I have the honor to be 

Your most obedient servant, 

Thos. B. Stirling, 

Secretary pro t&m. 
The Rev. Dr. Mathews. 

New-York, July 12th, 1855. 
T. B. Stirling, Esq. Secretary, etc. 

Dear Sir : — I have received your kind note of the 11th inst. and, agree- 
ably to your request, I place at your disposal a copy of the address delivered 
before the Alumni of the University, at their late anniversary. 
I am yours, with much consideration, 

J. M. Mathews^ 



ADDKESS. 



Mr. President ajnd Gentlemen : — 

In your polite note inviting me to deliver the annual 
address on the present occasion, you refer to a late anni- 
versary at which you were addressed with much ability by 
one of your professors, on what our City owes to the Uni- 
versity. You now ask me to dwell on what the University 
owes to the City and the State. You have also been pleased 
to allude to my having filled the office of its first Chancellor, 
to my identification with it from its origin, and to my full 
acquaintance with the views of its founders, as furnishing 
me with every advantage to speak on the subject. 

You have thus marked out the course you wish me to 
pursue, and I will endeavor to comply with your request. 
I will speak fi:eely. There is no reason why I should speak 
otherwise. Whatever part I may have been called to act 
in founding the Institution,* fidelity to truth as well as a 
respectful compliance with your expectations, will lead me 
to spread before you, without hesitation, what was designed, 
and what was done by the founders and early friends of the 
University; and what remains still to be done, if their views 
are to be carried out and their wishes realized. 



In referring to the early movements for establishing this 
seat of learning, I seem to be treading among fresh graves 
that should be held in deep reverence. Such is the melan- 
choly havoc that death makes in a short space of time, that^ 
though it' is scarcely twenty-five years since the first meet- 
ings on the subject were held, many of them at my own 
fireside, yet the majority of those who then took an active 
part in the enterprize are no longer among the living. 
There was Albeet Gallatin, with a world-wide reputation, 
not only as the friend of learning, but as the able diplo- 
matist and statesman. He is gone. There was MoEGAN 
Lewis, long on the bench as Chief-Justice of the State, and 
afterward in its executive chair as Governor. He also is 
gone. There was James Tallmadge, who spent many of his 
years in the councils both of the State and of the nation, 
and who devoted all his time and strength in his later life 
to Institutions for improving the public mind in science and 
art. He also is no more. Of our merchant-princes, we had 
such men as John Johnston, Samuel Wakd, Henky J. 
Wyckoff, and John Delafield, long known for their 
munificent public spirit and enlightened views of public 
good. They too are now numbered with the dead. Of my 
own profession, we had the clear -minded and pure-hearted Dr. 
McMueray; we had Dr. Milnoe, who, having distinguished 
himself as the legislator and the lawyer, had transferred the 
weight of his talents from the bar to the pulpit. I have seen 
them both laid in the grave. But there is still another 
name to be mentioned. If I am at all entitled to the credit 



which the Council of the Uijiversity have seen fit to assign 
me, for my agency in devising the enlarged scheme of 
instrnction it was designed to embrace, I am indebted to 
Bishop Wainwright for most valuable aid. He died, 
as we all know, a martyr to his zeal in the discharge of 
what he felt to be his duty; and it is with no ordinary 
emotion that I look back to the many days in which we 
took sweet counsel together in drawing out the plan and 
moulding the features of the University of ISTew-York. He 
was both the refined gentleman and the accomplished 
scholar. Liberal education had been one of his favorite 
studies; and he comprehended, with great justice, the mutual 
bearing of the several branches of knowledge that go to 
form the learned man, and a great Institution of learning. 
Every firiend of this University owes a tribute of gTatitude 
and respect to his memory. 

Delicacy forbids me to particularize the few who survive, 
and who had also a prominent hand in creating the Institu- 
tion, among whom, I may be permitted to add, is the man 
who opened the subscription for its endowment with his 
usual liberality. But from the names I have here recited, 
you see what were the intellectual and moral stature and 
standing of the men who were engaged in the work. They 
were not the men to be contented with any thing small, nor 
to devise any thing visionary. They knew what they were 
doing. They were men who not only could comprehend 
what the interest of learning required, but who understood 



8 

the spirit, the great public heart of our city ; and who felt 
assured that if they could expect to call out her well-known 
liberality, it must be for an object in correspondence with 
her own magnificent growth. For to her honor be it said, 
New- York has always well sustained such objects in the 
end ; while movements made on a more contracted scale 
she has sometimes allowed to fail. 

In accordance with these views, did the founders of the 
University mature their purpose. Our plan, our project, is 
matter of record. It has been long since published to the 
world. A mere college for under-graduate studies is far 
from what we contemplated. This was one of our aims, but 
by no means our highest ; and was not so connected with 
our main object, that it might not, in time, be separated from 
it, and be formed into a distinct Institution. Our design 
was to create a University — a University not merely in 
name, but in reality and truth, in which the widest range 
of liberal education should be provided and sustained ; a 
University framed on a scale adapted to the wants, not 
simply of our city, the metropolis of the western world 
though it be ; nor simply to the wants of our State^ Empire 
State though it be ; but to the wants of the whole nation., and 
drawing to its halls students from the North and the South, 
the East and the West. Nor was it to be a University cast 
after the model of Institutions abroad, which, however 
venerable for age, are defaced with the rust of indolence 
and inaction, and burdened by usages that are antiquated 



and worse than useless ; in wliicli, of course, there is much 
to unlearn and undo before the way is cleared for what is 
better and wiser. But it was to be a University adapted to 
the age of activity in which we live, to the untrammelled 
thought and lofty purposes of the nation to which we belong, 
and which, from its outset, should have the advantages of a 
clear track before it as it pursued its way. To speak more 
in detail. 

By a reference to our ordinances, it may be seen that 
they give full honor to classical education, but not so as to 
make it both the beginning and the end of scholarship. 
They are framed to render the exact sciences not only more 
exact, but thoroughly practical; uniting them with art, 
whether the art that models the marble into a form of life, 
-or that impels the locomotive to a speed outstripping the 
wind, or that produces rich harvests from the once barren 
soil. They provide for reaching the masses of mankind, 
giving them not what would be useless to their pursuits or 
their condition, but knowledge that would both lighten the 
burden of the working-man, and render his labor more 
available to his own advantage and the advantage of the 
public. They raise to a new, but merited importance, 
branches of science that had been viewed as of inferior rank, 
such as the science of instruction, whether in the Common 
School or the Academy. They provide for improvement 
in professional education. They establish courses of medical 
instruction that would not only multiply physicians, but 



10 

elevate the standard of medical knowledge. They give 
form to a Law Faculty that would not only educate pro- 
found lawyers, but would free the noble profession from its 
bondage to obsolete forms, and enable it to speak, not in a 
Latin jargon so barbarous that lawyers themselves are not 
ambitious to understand it, but in the intelligible vernacular 
of the citizen, whose rights it professes both to teach and to 
guard. They also include Professorships of Comparative 
Legislation and Jurisprudence, of Civil and Moral Statistics, 
all going to instruct the American citizen in the efS.cacy of 
our free institutions to promote the happiness and increase 
the number of the human family; thus making the Uni- 
versity a school for statesmen in the future service of our 
country. They look with care, also, to another profession, 
which has been too much overlooked in systems of liberal 
education, and yet which has risen to a paramount influence 
in the interests of civilization and the general welfare of 
man. I mean the profession of the merchant. Commerce 
has, in our day, created an empire of its own. It has a 
sway in the counsels of Cabinets, and in the movements of 
armies, that no empire or nation can disregard ; and it ought 
to have men trained for its leaders, that have enjoyed every 
advantage for acquiring enlarged and just ideas of the 
history, the laws, the morals, and the ends of Commerce. 
The commercial character of our city, as well as the intrinsic 
importance of the thing itself, make it fitting and right that, 
in a scheme of extended education in New- York, provision 
should be made for instruction in all these various aspects 



11 

and relations of a pursuit so interwoven witli tlie best 
interests of our land. Such a scheme is embraced in the 
original design of the University. And though last, not least ; 
when provision was made for all these various departments 
of knowledge, our plan was to sanctify knowledge, as well as 
to enlarge its boundaries ; and to show that the discoveries 
of science, so far from conflicting with religion, can be 
arrayed around her altars, both to enrich their glory, and to 
ensure their safety against the assaults of infidelity. 

It is very true, the incorporation of such various branches 
of instruction in the scheme of the University rendered the 
scope and objects of the Institution exceedingly comprehen- 
sive; and as there are men to be found everywhere Avho 
are croakers by profession, who are always finding lions in 
the way, and yet do nothing to remove or overcome them, 
we were met by those who pronounced the whole design 
Utopian, impracticable, and, even if practicable, disorgan- 
izing and revolutionary. This was to have been expected. 
If projectors and founders, who lead the way in any valuable 
achievement, would wisely count the cost to themselves, 
they must look for such opposition. The apostles who first 
preached our holy religion, were denounced as " men who 
turned the world upside down." When Columbus pressed 
his project for the discovery of a new continent, he was 
counted a mere schemer by the monks of Salamanca, who 
were well satisfied with things as they were ; who could not 
believe that another continent existed, and did not care to 



12 

have it known if it did, so long as they were allowed to doze 
away their lives in luxurious indulgence. But whatever 
may have been said by those who had no faith in the pro- 
jected University, the enterprize was in the hands of those 
who, having put their hands to the plough, were not willing 
to look back; who felt that a decided stroke was indis- 
pensable in order to build up what we intended to rear, and 
that those who were afraid to strike it were not the men 
for the work in hand. 

"We made our beginning accordingly. We did not 
expect to build Troy in a day, or that everything embraced 
in our liberal scheme could be accomplished at once. But 
from the first, we gave a prominent place to branches of 
learning lying far beyond the usual studies of a college 
course. Simultaneously with our appointment of a Faculty 
for the instruction of under-graduates, we filled the respective 
Chairs of the Evidences of Eevealed Eeligion, of Archi- 
tecture, of Civil Engineering, of the Literature of Design, 
and of the Hebrew, French, German, Italian, and Spanish 
Literature and Languages. Soon afterward we added the 
Chairs of Persian, Arabic and Syriac; of the Philosophy of 
Education; also of three Professors of Law; providing, 
in the meantime, for a scheme of medical instruction that 
might render Kew-York as distinguished for the numbers 
of her medical students as her position is advantageous for 
the cultivation of medical science; and at the end of four 
years from the time when instruction had been commenced, 



13 

we had placed the Institution in this noble edifice — thus 
giving it not only a local habitation with its name, but also 
ensuring to it an anchorage in public sentiment and public 
sympathies that would enable it the better to outride the 
storms throuo-h which new institutions of its kind have 
generally to pass. 

We could claim no special credit for these movements. 
We were only keeping good faith with the public. It was 
with a promise of doing what we did, and with all practicable 
speed, that we had gone to the people and to the State for 
patronage and funds; and we had no inclination to come 
short of our word, or to hesitate about giving it practical 
embodiment at once. We had no ambition to be enrolled 
as belonging to the generation of slow men. What we did, 
we thought it wise to do quickly, and to do it with our 
might. It was our purpose fixed and unalterable, that as 
the Institution bore the name of a University, it should give 
to the public, from its origin, a full pledge, in its distinguish- 
ing features, that it was to he what it was called. Every 
department of instruction felt the benefit of this policy. 
Even the under-graduate classes, which some feared might 
be overshadowed and injured, mounted up to a number 
that surprised the most sanguine. We placed the higher 
branches of learning in the hands of men possessing a wide 
reputation, and their names reflected lustre on the whole 
Institution. Not to mention others, among them was the 
man who is now acknowledged, both at home and abroad, 



14 

as the inventor of the electric telegraph; and within these 
walls were the wires first taught to speak a language that 
now pervades the globe. Another was the civil engineer 
who first made the surveys and marked out the course of 
the princely Aqueduct which brings the Croton to our 
dwellings. 

Such were the views and the policy of the men who 
founded the University, such was the form which they gavQ 
it from its birth ; and every sentiment of gratitude, of high 
regard for the cause of Science and Letters, and of wise 
forethought for the future, requires that their comprehensive 
scheme be neither abandoned nor curtailed. Grentlemen, it 
is a good thing l^o pay our debts, and it is a source of con- 
gratulation that all pecuniary claims against the Institution 
appear to have been discharged. But be it remembered, 
the University is far from being out of debt when it has 
received a receipt in full against such obligations. It owes 
to the public something more and better than silver or gold. 
It owes them light; it owes them knowledge; it owes them 
not only instruction for their youth, but access for men of 
all ages and tastes to fountains of varied and liberal learning 
adapted to its own name and corresponding with its early 
history. Had the noble-minded men, many of them now 
sleeping in their graves, supposed that the University they 
founded would fail to redeem its pledges, or would fall back 
from the position it assumed when it first opened its halls, 
they would never have touched the enterprize. If I may 



15 

be excTised for alluding to myself, had sucli been my 
apprehension, no consideration could have induced me to 
assume the responsibilities and labors of an ofiice in the 
Institution which, combined with other indispensable duties, 
so overtasked my strength as to have well nigh sent me to 
an early grave; which often called me to encounter collisions 
that were inevitable in carrying out our design, and to 
endure charges of injustice and partiality from those who 
sought what fidelity to my trust would not allow me to give ; 
and which sometimes put me in painful antagonism with 
the judgment and wishes of old and valued friends. But if 
right counsels shall prevail to the end, still guiding the 
future destinies of the Institution ; if the towers rising above 
us where we are now assembled, are to be, as they were 
intended, true emblems of its strength, elevation, and 
endurance from generation to generation, then is every toil 
and every care on its behalf well bestowed and will be 
amply rewarded. 

Gentlemen, I need not ask how far such a full-orbed 
Institution would meet your approbation. I can have no 
doubt as to the readiness with which you will appreciate 
the liberal scheme of the men who founded your Alma 
Mater. To you, it will furnish no objection that it bears 
an aspect somewhat new. The time has gone by when 
self-styled conservatives can affect to smile at progress. It 
would be well for such men to consider, that if they will not 
go forward they must be run over. Progress is the word 



16 

of our age, as it has been of every age that promised good 
for the future. The first spread of Christianity was an age 
of progress. The Keformation of religion and learning 
from the delusions of the dark ages was an age of progress. 
Nothing in our world is stationary. Every thing created is 
constantly going either backward or forward, is in a state 
of either improvement or decay. It is so in the products of 
the earth, in every power or faculty that belongs to man 
himself. No wise man, then, will cling to every thing that 
is old, simply because it is old. An Egyptian mummy is 
very well in its place, as a mummy ; but we would be far 
from keeping it in our drawing-room, when we could obtain 
in its stead a statue or a bust from the hands of a Canova 
or a Grreenough. We would rather leave the old thing in 
its crypt, to be examined by the curious lover of relics who 
has nothing else to do. 

Such mouldering antiquities, however, are not the worst 
things in our world. So far as we know, they have inflicted 
no evil on their generations. But there are enormous abuses 
which are the growth of time — abuses in States, in Churches, 
and in Seminaries of learning ; abuses which have become 
oppressive and injurious wrongs upon the human race; 
and, Gentlemen, it is your privilege and mine to live at a 
period when many of these grievous enormities, whether civil, 
religious, or literary, are shaken and tottering toward their 
fall. Not a few of them, indeed, have fallen already. We 
can see His almighty hand now at work who has said, "Yet 



lY 

once a little while, and I will shake the heavens and the 
earth, and the sea and the dry land." And this word, "yet 
once more," as the Apostle interprets it, "signifieth the 
removing of those things that are shaken — that those Avhich 
are not shaken may remain." The nations of the Old World 
feel this spirit of revolution and change becoming stronger 
and stronger within them ; and what we have seen of thrones 
overturned, and aristocracies sinking from their once high 
estate, is but the beginning of the end. The cloisters and 
the mosques of superstition are no longer able to keep their 
doors barred against the progressive and inquisitive spirit 
of our day ; and w^hen we have found our way within, and 
see the hollow deceit which had held the world so long in 
spiritual bondage, we come forth animated with new zeal 
for the spread of an intelligent and life-renewing faith. The 
shrines of learning, too, are made subject to this same spirit 
of scrutiny, which goes on weighing everything before it in 
the balances of truth and right. Even Oxford and Cam- 
bridge, though surrounded with thousands of hallowed 
memories, having, with their untold wealth, too long dozed 
over Greek prosody and dry mathematics, allowing their 
youth to know more about port wine and hot suppers, swift 
horses and hounds, than about usefal studies, now find the 
hand of the Eeformer reaching them, and requiring them to 
give an account of their stewardship. Indeed, all the oldest 
seats of learning are about to pass into a state of transition. 
Science throughout the civilized world is required to lay 
aside her stateliness, and to come forward, and even stoop 



18 

down to see what she can devise and do for the practical 
benefit of man. The loud and earnest cry of Bacon, when 
he asked, "Is knowledge ever barren?" begins- to be heard 
far and near, among the high and the low ; and in no land 
on which the sun shines is the cry so earnest, so loud, and 
so prolonged as in our own. She has risen np, and, con- 
scious of her giant strength, though yet in her youth, she 
has announced to the nations her lofty purpose to create a 
new era in the history of the human race ; a new era in the 
knowledge and assertion of civil and social rights ; a new 
era in the wider extension of an education that will liberate, 
elevate, and stimulate the whole mass of mind in a nation 
qualifying them both for self-government and self-pro- 
tection ; a new era in the cultivation of science by scientific 
men, giving them both the will and the means to discover 
the yet secret powers of every element in nature, and to 
draw them forth in new applications to the service of 
man. 

See what she has already done with that most subtle and 
powerful element, the electric fluid ! One of her sons first 
chained it to a rod to protect our lives and dwellings from 
its deadly stroke ; and another, as already intimated, has 
tamed down the once-dreaded thing, that seemed powerful 
only for evil, and has made it the obedient messenger to 
carry our thoughts around the world with the speed of 
thought itself. If I mistake not, electricity has only begun 
to do its destined work. Our all-wise Creator makes nothing 



19 

in vain. He never wastes his own workmanship. He sees 
the end from the beginning. He adapts means to their 
ends. Nor can I suppose that he wonld have given such 
surpassing ability to that wonderfal agent, if he had not 
designed it to accomplish more wonderful results than we 
have yet seen. I believe the day is coming when, with an 
increase of safety, and with an economy of time and cost as 
yet unknown, it will impel our ships across the ocean and 
our cars on the railroad; when it will drive the press that 
prints our books; when it will even effect new wonders in 
agriculture, as in everything else, and will produce rich 
crops from soils now abandoned to barrenness and desolation. 
And as it was under American mind that the lightning 
received its first schooling, is it not reasonable to suppose 
that it will finish its education under masters of the same 
nation? 

What is true of the electric fluid may be true also con- 
cerning other powers of nature ; for, notwithstanding all that 
has been discovered by science in her deepest investigations, 
we are yet only on the surface. 

" There are more things in heaven and earth 
Than are now dreamt of in our philosophy." 

Fire may yet be extracted from mountains of ice, and the 
frozen mass thus made to liquify itself. The very Upas 
tree may yet be made to farnish a healing antidote to its 
own deadly poison. The noxious vapors now ascending 



20 

from the putrid mass, may yet be turned into a channel that 
will minister to the health which they are now so powerful to 
destroy. But if in such achievements for public good, the elas- 
tic, ever active, indomitable genius of our country is either to 
take or keep the lead, she must have institutions of learning 
and science that will dare to step beyond the usages of past 
centuries; that will quicken the minds of her sons to invent, 
to explore, to test everything that the Creator of earth, air, 
and sea has placed within their reach — institutions embracing 
a sphere of instruction that leaves no one branch of Science 
or of Letters to stand alone, isolated from others that would 
tend to their mutual improvement if united ; but in which 
all may be grouped as in a bright constellation, where every 
new star that is added renders the whole sky the more 
brilliant and heavenly. 

And now let me ask, If the nation needs such a seat of 
learning to develop her intellect and prepare her to run the 
race set before her, where can she plant it with so much 
advantage to all she would expect from it, as in the city of 
New- York? For its proper growth and expansion, as I 
have described it, its teachers and its taught must have 
ready access to vast libraries, where they can converse with 
both the dead and the living ; and to rich collections from 
nature and art, where they can survey both the various 
productions of the Almighty Creator and the works of 
human skill and contrivance. It must also be embosomed 
in a community where man can have free intercourse with 



21 

man, where man comes into collision with man, where man 
can co-operate with man, where man is the study of man. 
It mnst have the bodily diseases and social wrongs of all 
climes and nations brought within its observation, that it 
may give opportunity to study their nature and origin, and 
how they are to be remedied. It must have a living cosmo- 
rama constantly before it and around it, exhibitions of men 
in the widest universality, universality of pursuits, uni- 
versality of tastes, universality of condition and character. 
So much the better if, Avithin the walk of an hour, you could 
meet with men from a score of different nations, speaking 
as many different languages, governed by as many different 
instincts and objects. All these advantages should enter 
into the field of a University doing the work of the day, and 
of the land in which we live. 

I need not tell you. Gentlemen, how in these respects 
Kew-York outstrips all other cities of the western world, 
and is every year leaving them more and more in the 
distance. Her wealth increases faster than sobriety is 
inclined to count it; and even when mines of gold are 
discovered on the shores of the Pacific, the treasure must 
first be poured into the lap of New- York before it circulates 
through the nation. As a consequence of her facilities for 
the accumulation of property, she is fast becoming the 
increased abode of keen-sighted, far-seeing men, who impart 
more or less of the tone of their own spirit to every class of 
our inhabitants. This, however, is but a circumstance in 



the advantages of New- York as a site for a University such 
as she ought to possess. With her numerous libraries, with 
her various museums, with her swarming population, she sees 
choice minds of the land among her divines, her lawyers, 
her physicians, her men of Science and Letters — all of them 
tending, in their various spheres, to carry the intelligence of 
the city upward and onward. Through the great arteries 
that branch out in all directions from her as the heart of 
the nation, she has a free communication with ever}^ part 
of our vast country, drawing to herself whatever it can 
yield, and which tends to build up her own greatness ; and 
with the wide Atlantic, bridged as it is at her very doors 
by her noble steamers, she finds herself in daily intercourse 
with the best intellects of the Old World ; and as they pour 
their richest wisdom into this new hemisphere, she has the 
first of it, before it passes beyond her, or into the hands of 
others. 

Gentlemen, can you conceive of a place with higher 
advantages than these for such an Institution as the Uni- 
versity of the city of New-York was designed to be ? And 
now let me add, the nation calls loudly and imperatively 
for such a seat of learning, and she will have it. Public 
sentiment has become so decided on the subject, as not to 
admit of much longer delay. The work must be done, and 
New -York is the right place for doing it. If not done on 
the foundation already here laid for it, it must be done 
elsewhere. To which of the alternatives my feelings would 



23 

incline, you can readily imagine. But, I repeat, the work 
must be done, and wherever it is well done, I will rejoice 
to see it, and will consider one of the aims of my life to 
have been accomplished. Public welfare, and not individual 
preference, should always be the first consideration with 
men who would deserve public confidence. Araicus Socrates^ 
amicus Plato, sed major amicus Veritas. 



The Committee of the Association, in their letter to De. 
Mathews, having referred to his early connection with the Uni- 
versity as its first Chancellor, the following extract from the 
Minutes of the Council is subjoined, showing the nature and extent 
of the services which he had rendered to the Institution before he 
retired from the Chancellorship : 

University of the City of New- York, ) 
February 11, 1839. \ 

At a meeting of the Council this day, the following communication was 
presented by the Chancellor, and read by the Secretary : 

To the Honorable the Council of the University of the City of New-York. 

Gentleivien : — It is probably recollected by the Council that I made a 
communication to them in June last, stating that several medical advisers 
had urged me, not only to take a respite from my public labors, but to sever 
myself for a time from the scene and associations of my present employment 
by going abroad. This advice I then felt it my duty to follow, and, accord- 
ingly, proposed to surrender my office as Chancellor into the hands of the 
Council. 

Obstacles which are well known imposed upon me the necessity of defer- 
ring the execution of my purpose. These are now successfully surmounted ; 
but the same reasons for taking a period of relaxation yet exist, and in still 



u 



greater strength. I am advised, also, that in order to derive permanent 
advantage from the contemplated suspension of my labors, such arrange- 
ments should be completed as will secure me against that accumulation of 
official responsibilities which I have borne for several years past. I accord- 
ingly feel constrained to renev^^ the proposition formerly made, and to ask 
the action of the Council upon it by the appointment of a successor in the 
Chancellorship, as soon as they shall judge convenient and suitable arrange- 
ments can be made for carrying it into effect. 

The Council, I trust, will not consider me as relinquishing any of my 
feelings of interest in the Institution. My intimate connection with it from 
its origin will not allow it to fade away from my affection and my sympathies. 
But it has always been well understood by many of my friends, that my 
object, from the time of my appointment, has been rather to co-operate with 
the Council in founding and organizing the University on a scale commen- 
surate with the wants of the country, than to continue at its head after it 
should have been brought into complete operation. This object I consider 
as mainly accomplished. The Faculties of Philosophy and Letters, of 
Science and Arts, and of Law, are now fully organized, and the Chairs filled 
with able professors successfully prosecuting their respective labors. And 
although unexpected delay has taken place in completing the Medical Faculty, 
yet the extended system of instruction according to which the Professorships 
have been arranged, has been maturely weighed, and is now finally adopted ; 
and I hope that ere long this department of the University will be brought 
into successful action, and in a manner that will be of essential service to 
the cause of medical science. 

Besides other means which have been provided for carrying out the objects 
of the Institution, the building for its accommodation is now completed, and 
is alike ornamental to our city and admirably adapted to its purposes. An 
endowment has also been obtained from the State, which enables the Council 
to carry forward the business of the University, and yet not to allow its 
ordinary expenses to exceed its ordinary income ; and I feel assured that in 
this state of things, the friends of learning will carry out successfully the 
system of measures now adopted for paying off the floating debt. I have 
always been persuaded that when the late disastrous times should have passed 
away, a proper application to the public authorities and to liberal individuals, 
would obtain the pecuniary aid which is requisite to secure the stability of 
the Institution. 

It is now more than eight years since I had the honor to receive the 
appointment to my present office ; and in surrendering it into the hands of 
the Council, after a connection with them during such a length of time, I feel 
it but just, both to them and to myself, to express my cordial gratitude for 



25 



their undeviating kindness and support in the discharge of my official duties. 
Amidst all the labors required of me in the prosecution of our arduous enter- 
prize, I have been sustained with a magnanimity and fidelity which can never 
be forgotten. 

With ardent prayers for the blessings of God upon the Council, and upon 
the Institution itself in all its depai'tments, I have the honor to be, 

With sentiments of sincere and affectionate consideration. 
Yours very truly, 

J. M. Mathkws, Chancellor. 



The Chancellor then retired, and his letter was, on motion, referred to a 
committee, who made the following report : 

" The committee to whom the letter of resignation of the Chancellor was 
referred, having considered the matter referred to them, 

" Eespectfully report : — 

" That they have embodied the views entertained by themselves, and which 
they deem proper to be expressed by the Council upon this subject, in the 
form of resolutions, which they recommend for the adoption of the Council. 

" Resolved, That this Council have learned with deep regret, that the 
retirement of the Chancellor from the station he now occuj)ies is rendered 
necessary by the state of his health, and they sincerely hope that the proposed 
relaxation of his labors will result in his speedy and complete recovery and 
in prolonging his valuable life. 

" Resolved, That the resignation of the Chancellor be and the same is 
hereby accepted, and that he be requested to continue in office until a suc- 
cessor shall be appointed and shall enter upon the discharge of the duties 
assigned him, at which time the said resignation shall take effect. 

"And whereas on this occasion it is peculiarly proper and demanded by 
justice to the Chancellor, that this Council should express their opinion of 
his character and services as the Head of the University; therefore, 

'• Resolved, That in him they recognize its projector and principal founder, 
and the author of the enlarged and liberal system of education upon which 
it is based ; that ever since his connection with it as its first officer, they have 
been the witnesses of his zeal, devotion, and sacrifices to promote its best 
interests, in rearing the University edifice, and in other means of advancing the 
cause of science and learning ; that they have always had entire confidence 



26 

in his integrity, fidelity, and singleness of purpose ; and that, in the judgment 
of the Council, for these and other services rendered to the Institution, he is 
well entitled to the gratitude of its friends, the public, and of posterity. 

"And, as a testimony of the respect entertained for him by the Council as 
a body, and as individuals, be it farther 

" Resolved, That the Chancellor be requested to sit for his portrait to 
some artist to be designated by himself, that the same be placed in the 
Library of the University, and that the expense of taking the said portrait 
be contributed by members of the Council. 

"All v^'hich is respectfully submitted. 

" Netv-Yoek. February H, 1839." 

This report having been read, was unanimously adopted. 

James Tai.lmadge, President. 
Wm. B. Maclav, Secretary. 



LIBRRRY OF CUNUKhbb 



028 334 311 fl i 



